Elliott Miller couldn’t remember the events of Nov. 19, 2006, no matter how many times the other Navy SEALs he was with repeated all the details to him. Miller was one of a team of SEALs, which also included his friend Ray Mendoza, who were carrying out overwatch in a two-story house in Ramadi, Iraq, when their position was attacked. After the initial attack, the team’s attempt at casualty evacuation went horribly wrong when an improvised explosive device detonated.
Miller’s story, and the team’s firefight a week before Thanksgiving in 2006, is retold in the film “Warfare,” which was directed by Mendoza and based on the recollections of the team members who fought with them.
Miller has used a wheelchair since he was injured during the firefight and still struggles to remember the events. Mendoza, who went on to work in Hollywood as a technical advisor for movies including “Lone Survivor” and “Civil War,” has said he made “Warfare” as a tribute to Miller and their teammates.
To capture the combat in a new way, “Warfare” tells the story in near-real-time, from the SEALs’ stealthy approach to their target, to the chaos and violence of the botched evacuation of wounded teammates Miller (Cosmo Jarvis) and Sam (Joseph Quinn).
Mendoza co-wrote and co-directed the film with “Civil War” director Alex Garland. Garland wanted to forensically recreate the battle and the pair went about staging a minute-by-minute operation. That includes the quiet and slow start as the SEALs observe targets, jot notes, do pushups and wait for any sign of danger.
Task & Purpose spoke with Mendoza (who is played in the film by D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai) about the journey from the house in Ramadi to the movie’s release and how he and Garland brought that day to life.
This interview contains mild spoilers for “Warfare” and has been edited for clarity and length.
Task & Purpose: You worked with Alex on “Civil War” and you told us last year he kind of mentored you. How did that evolve into you two co-directing this movie about your own experiences?
Ray Mendoza: When I put that [battle at the end of the movie], he was the first guy to see all of the things I put in there. We had conversations about what I wanted to do on set, but when he edited it, he just found something that was raw and a very different style. That kind of sparked an idea of doing a whole movie that way. He gave me a call and said “I have this idea for a movie. I think we should do it in real-time, as in no time compression, minute by minute. We can slide the window but expand or compress it. Do you have any ideas?” I have a lot of friends in the military, guys in the regiment, [Special Forces] dudes, a lot of stories to draw from. This one is a little contained, a lot of the stories are bigger scoped. We needed something that was contained, so I suggested this. I had to call the guys to make sure they were cool with it. I had to call Elliott to make sure he was cool with it. I told [Alex] the story and he was like, alright, if you want to do it, I think we should do it.
Q: This movie is, as you say, based on memory. Did you have to go back and ask “What do you guys remember from that day,” or was it something that you knew pretty well?
A: We did a pretty thorough after-action, especially on that day. From a physical action standpoint, most guys remembered it, for the most part. What was more important, for me, was the emotional components of it. I was going to need actors to act out certain things. The “based on memories” part, kind of comes from — once you put in “based on a real event” in a movie it gives you the license to go, “oh it’s based off a real incident, what I’m about to watch is bullshit.” I didn’t want people to think that. I wanted them to know that we did everything we could to keep every action accurate and every portrayal accurate. The only way to do that was to get into the emotional component, which is something we never talk about. Especially on the day.
You always think you’re going to have an opportunity to do that, but you don’t. Guys go to different platoons, they get out of the military, they go back to their hometowns. You never get to have those conversations. So we had those conversations 20 years later. We all have blank spots in our memory, especially 20 years later. A lot of it was very forensic, very detective-like approach to piecing it all together. Post-IED, my memory is very fragmented, blacking out a lot. One minute I’m kneeling, next minute I’m standing. I don’t know how that happened. I did three magazine changes, but don’t remember it, things like that. So you start using other people’s memories to fill in your gaps, and so on and so forth. The more people we interviewed, “Oh cool, he solved that problem!” Although one person would solve another person’s memory issue, it would just create another, because he would have gaps in his memory. The more people we interviewed, it created more gaps. But it would also either solve a problem or it would be a tiebreaker on some things. Two people would remember the same thing differently, so oftentimes there would be a third or fourth person who would set the record straight.
Q: In “Civil War,” you brought in a lot of veterans you knew to play the troops in the action scenes, in part because they knew the tactics and movements. Here, you had to deal with all actors who weren’t in the military. What was that challenge like?
A: It was fun! I love doing that stuff, that team building. Especially when those actors are willing to do it. There are other sets I’ve been on where the actors don’t give a fuck. These guys, it goes back to the casting process. I selected them for those reasons. We all knew they could act. I was looking for the right guy who had that fire in the gut, was going to do the long days, it would be stressful, who was not going to go back to his trailer, who was going to be all in.
Training them was good. They were sponges. They were willing. They’re all physical, all young, in shape, they wanted to get after it. It was fun. I pushed them really, really hard, like every day, in every way. It was refreshing because they wanted to learn. I had three-and-a-half weeks with them, they were great, they were picking it up. They partied on the weekend, which was great. It was how we were when we were young. It adds to the camaraderie. That stuff adds up onscreen. But the training never stopped.
Q: This is a movie about your memories, but you also have someone playing you in this. What was your direction and interactions with D’Pharoah?
A: I tried to treat him the same. In a weird way I focused more on the other guys than I did him. I just had to detach myself. I would still give him direction, but we had a lot of talks ahead of time, I said, “I need you to run with this. I’m going to dedicate myself to my friends, I want them portrayed more accurately. I could give a shit about how you portray me accurately or not.” It wasn’t about me. I still gave him the attention, but it was equal. I try to detach myself and not get wrapped up into “this is me.” I said, “Just embody it in spirit.” You’re not going to be me or talk like me. You’re going to learn a little bit about radio etiquette and radio rhythms and cadence and a lot of that is me because I spent 16 years as a comms guy. But if you just learn the job, you will be me. There’s things, if you just watch me talk to the other guys or observe me you’ll see how I speak. If you want to embody that, then that’s great. But a lot of it was in the prep and training. It’s very operational, obviously, there’s the emotional component of dealing with someone whose legs are blown off. I would talk to him about that. My job was to try and calm him down. I wasn’t crying, I was on the radio most of the time. We did a comms course, I said “what you’re about to learn, use that.” That’s what I used to control my emotions — the comms.
Q: This is your experience being recreated in front of you. What was that like for you, emotionally, on set? It has to be weird seeing it recreated as forensically accurate as possible.
A: There’s a moment when D’Pharoah drags Cosmo up the driveway. Elliott was with us on set that day and there was one take where the lens and the angle were just right. Elliott and I had spoken about that moment. We spoke about everything. I had conveyed to him how fucking heavy he was. We would always make fun of his weight because he had a powerlifter build, a bowling ball with legs. He got emotional watching it, and so did I. I had never cried about that, ever. Just never did. But obviously there were some emotions that I had pushed down there for a really long time.
I think that was the only [way] that could happen, having Elliott there. We text about it because he can’t talk. It was the only way I could get over it, visually seeing it and having to deal with it. It’s just fucking too hard to explain that shit, for me. I recreated it visually, exactly. That’s what it looked like that day. People saw it, and people understand now why I was upset, and I can’t do that with words. I don’t have that ability, I’m not a poet. It was therapeutic and provided closure, I think, for a lot of people.
“Warfare” is in theaters now.